The Road LEAST Taken

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The Idea

This piece's idea was spawned in the middle of my literature class when we were analyzing poetry. We were looking at the classic poem, "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost, and I had this really goofy idea as I read the last few lines.

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

I grabbed my planner, trying to hurry and write down the idea before it left me to never return. It was so random, but so perfect. And it fits perfectly with my Sustained Investigation.

I do things pretty differently, as I'm sure you've gathered by now. I think differently, I solve problems differently, and I take the path less traveled by. Except, I'm not on the path at all. I've been avoiding paths for a while now, so I can explore the unknown and better myself.

It's the road least traveled, and that's made all the difference.

Just a crop of the final piece! I need to measure this thing, whoops. (It's smaller than most of my other pieces, but not by much. It's more square.)

This bush I drew in my sketchbook a while back was based off the trees I drew for the experiments of this piece! This was how I decided I liked how the colors look.

The page in my sketchbook I used for thumbnails and experimental doodles.

I experimented on this page, messing with layouts before ultimately deciding to go with a square-ish sized paper, working mainly with pen/ink.

This is the doodle I quickly did at the top of my planner to help me remember this idea.

You can really tell how dedicated I am to learning how to draw shovels.

The Process

I took a piece of paper that I cut from the main piece and drew a tree for some quick practice.

I jumped right in during class, writing out the words and getting things sketched. I usually have a hard time getting started, so this was really good for me!

I started penning the figure during my study period in the library, trying to rework the movement to keep the eye traveling across the piece.

I started working on penning/coloring the background while pausing with the figure, making sure that the focus would remain in the front if I added the chaos in the background.

The pine trees were fun to do, especially seeing as it was a new method of drawing trees that I had "come up with".

I got to school early to work on the piece, only to find that the door to the art room was locked. So, I set up shop in the hallway and worked on the floor for an hour.

Finally, everything was starting to come together. Someone asked me how long the grass took, and my response was, "I don't know. I kind of zone out while drawing grass."

My next mission was to shade the underground.

And finally it was done, after working like mad on it after school for days. UPDATE: The teacher actually kept this piece to hang in her classroom after I graduated!

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I was trying every method I know to get that underground section blended, and this was the method I ended up using, as I posted on my Instagram.

VID_52971215_140953_272.mp4

I was trying to hurry and finish before classes started, which I didn't manage and had to stay after art class anyways, but it was interesting what methods I came up with.

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